President Hope-and-Sleaze

Let’s be grateful that Barack Obama’s contempt for politics as usual is a matter of public record.

Otherwise, we might be saddled with a White House that offers federal jobs to potential candidates it wants to keep out of Democratic primaries, and does it in such a crude fashion that it skirts the law.

We might witness the release of pertinent news about one of the cases on the Friday before a three-day weekend in one of the oldest, most predictable PR tricks in the book.

We might have to rely on a sketchy document purporting to outline the facts from a conflicted White House counsel that’s a kind of haiku of lawyerly obfuscation.

We might have to read statements from White House officials in the press denying a job was ever offered to one of the candidates, when an e-mail released by the candidate clearly demonstrates an offer of a job.

We might have to tolerate a White House press secretary who dances and spins his way through ethical questions he simply wants to outlast and make go away.